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Rio Tinto reported a 1.2% rise in its third-quarter iron ore shipments on Tuesday, as the Anglo-Australian miner ramped up production at its Gudai-Darri mine.
The world’s biggest iron ore producer shipped 83.9 million tonnes of the steel-making ingredient from its Pilbara operations in the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with 82.9 Mt a year earlier.Rio, which generates 70% of its profit through its iron ore operations, saw prices of the commodity improve compared to the second quarter as top consumer China stepped up its stimulus efforts.
The company maintained its full-year expectations for shipments from Pilbara in the upper half of the 320 million to 335 million tonnes range. Pilbara iron ore unit cost guidance remained unchanged at $21.0 to $22.5 per tonne.Mined copper production of 169,000 tonnes in the quarter was 5% higher than a year earlier, the company said.
The rise, on a consolidated basis, reflected the ramp-up of the high-grade underground mine at Oyu Tolgoi, Mongolia and higher copper feed grades at the Escondida mine.Giant lithium deal collapses after Australian billionaire Rinehart steps in Albemarle has walked away from its $4.2 billion takeover of Liontown Resources after Australia’s richest woman built up a blocking minority.Kupferschiefer project aims to revisit archive geological data and reinterpret it using petroleum and mineral system approaches, creating maps of mineral prospective areas within the Central European Basin.